Good day to you all, Traipsers! I remain Jonathan Charles Bruce, stalwart guide to the dark and oftentimes moist world of terror, Silent Hill! When we last left Harry, he had completed a sewer level and it was pretty awful. Such things only serve to delay him on his quest to do something one of these days, I’m sure of it!

  We emerge from the sewers near the lake, although it isn’t quite clear where we’ve popped up.

Um... this place really hates its sewer employees, huh?

It turns out that it is night again, which of course means that the monsters have the appearance of spawning in greater frequency than normal. Whether or not they do so remains to be seen. What can be verified is that at least the monsters seem to be the pre-nightmare world variants, making them trivially easy (more so, I mean) should a dust-up occur. Also, even though the sewers wouldn’t let us cross back into the first area of the game, we can return to the sewers for… um… reasons.

  Cough.

  There’s a nearby house with a couple of goodies in it that are apparently left over from some kind of bombing run…

A tragic victim of the fire that ripped through town... seven years ago.

… but that’s about it in our immediate surroundings. I mean, you’d think we’d emerge in another fenced-off area since this was an abandoned sewer waterworks and all. But whatever!

  Luckily for us floundering-in-the-dark types, there is an information billboard with a handy area map nearby that reveals that this is the resort area.

Reference!

Yes, this, I suppose, is the “resort” portion of the “resort” town of Silent Hill, which consists of about one square block of stuff. What I think is far more relevant is the fact that this city fucking sucks as being anything other than weird-ass murder capital of the world.

  Oh, wait. There’s apparently an amusement park just to the west. Well, that totally justifies referring to this shithole as a resort community.

  Anyway, examining the map reveals that a place called Annie’s Bar is nearby. For those of you who have been reading along or have played Origins, you may remember that Dr. Kaufmann referenced the site of a staff party. I didn't directly mention it in the post, but the place in question was Annie's Bar. Now, I doubt there will be any leftover drinks and food from seven years ago, but it may be something worth checking out.

  As we head over there, I’d like to take the opportunity to let you know that we don’t have a clear indication of what, if anything, we’re doing here. I mean, searching for Cheryl, yes, but we’ve been doing that since the beginning. Dahlia said we shouldn’t be bumbling around in the dark, but this is now, quite literally, what we’re doing. I’m going on a fucking hunch from a prequel released eight years after this game.

  I’d say this is bad conveyance, but I have a feeling that, after the first eight billion times I’ve said it, it may not mean a whole lot.

  Annie’s Bar!

It's a thing!

So we wander inside and holy lord, Dr. Skeeves, what the hell are you doing!?

Well... this took a weird turn.

Okay, Harry, there’s only one way to handle this. You know what you have to do.

Please think of something clever to say. Oh, look who I'm talking to. I'll do it myself.

He’s not a good person, Harry. Well, I know that, anyway. The audience knows that. To you, he’s just some jackass weirdo. But take heart… you’re doing the right thing.

Your coverage... is terminated.

  Sadly, that does not happen. Instead, Harry shoots the teddy bear monster off of Dr. Skeeves and the “good” doctor, in response, kicks the shit out of it.

I get why he does it. It doesn't make it any less silly.

  Harry walks over to Kaufmann and they engage in the now-standard awkward eye-contact dialogue this game insists on having at every available opportunity. Harry asks if Skeeves is okay, Skeeves replies that he’s tired for some reason.

That's... not really what that idiom means. I think. Maybe.

Then he goes on to… you know what? I think I’ll let these two morons speak for themselves.

"Why would I come back if I found a way out?"
"... Um... friendship?"

Just to establish how little of a fuck the script writer gave for this game, two guys ask each other if they found a way out of town, while they’re both still in town. That’s… that’s…

  Uuuuuuuuuugh…

  Anyway, Kaufmann announces that he’s damn sure that a military rescue squad (which sounds like it would fit comfortably after Nurse Center on NBC’s coming lineup) is going to be rolling in soon. And if they come through, these two knuckleheads won’t die! So, that’s good, right?

  Right?

  Then, because these handful of lines has rejuvenated the “beat” doctor and no one in the goddamn game has one iota of self-preservation instinct, Dr. Skeeves actually fucking says, “I’d better get going. This isn’t the time to stand around flapping our gums.”

  What?

  Fucking what, game?

  Where do you think you need to go, Skeeves? What appointment do you have to keep during the fucking apocalypse that necessitates you to leave Harry again!? Do you think the rescue team is going to turn you away unless you’ve rescued other people first? I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.

  There’s literally no reason for this. If Dr. K believes—truly believes—the military is going to save the day, he should be trying to convince Harry to help him barricade the diner. Harry should be the one to leave because of that missing child he’s constantly whittering on about. The fact that the doctor has not once, but twice, run out on Harry without a goddamn word of explanation why is tremendously suspicious.

  But, since Harry is a complete dolt, the only thing he manages to mutter before the doctor leaves is asking if he knows a girl named Alessa. And Dr. K… well, take it away, you fucking lunatic.

You're gonna need aloe for that burn, Harry.

AH HA HA HA HA, suck it, Harry.

  You know, say what you will about Dr. Kaufmann.

  What? Say what you want. The guy’s an asshole.

  Now, this setup seems really artificial to me. Harry doesn’t mention Alessa to absolutely anyone—Dahlia, Lisa, Cybil—but Dr. K. The logical question to ask would be if Dr. K had seen Lisa. She is, after all, trapped in a nightmare version of the hospital he works at and he may want to know about the wellbeing of someone in his employ. I mean, it does make sense that Harry would ask Kaufmann about Alessa, but it would be more likely that he would have asked Lisa about her—as at that point, he had literally just seen her photo in the goddamn hospital.

  Like, why would he choose here and now to bring up Alessa? She has been a non-entity in his mind since discovering the room in the hospital. Why is it suddenly important that he asks Dr. Kaufmann about it after shooting a Pokémon off the guy’s chest? Harry hasn’t even put two and two together about Alessa being the girl he saw in the school basement! There’s no credible reason why she, of all the people and events he has witnessed, would be at the forefront of his mind when dealing with Kaufmann! He even thinks that the girl Cybil saw crossing to the lake was Cheryl, so why is he talking about Alessa?

  And speaking of our officer buddy, asking Cybil about Alessa would have made more sense since, as a police officer, she may know something! Lisa is trapped in the nightmare world which is the only place we can be certain the room the girl was trapped in even exists!

  God. Fucking. DAMN IT.

  I guess I’m honestly just frustrated that whenever there is any opportunity for the game to explain itself or provide a chance at maybe, maybe developing something, Harry always squanders the moment and might as well just start shrieking about his blood is made out of frogs for all the good it does.

  Well, that was a waste of… eh? There’s something on the floor where Dr. Kaufmann was having a wrestling match with a fuzzy-wuzzy.

Club card for super weight gain powder... credit cards... XXL condoms. *Snort* Keep telling yourself that, Dr. Skeeves.
Although, how the hell did his wallet fly all the way over there?

A wallet! Oh, Harry, you heartless opportunistic dipshit, god bless you and your shriveled conscience.

  Yes, the entire purpose of saving Dr. K from being mauled by a stuffed animal given unholy life was to steal the fucker’s wallet. Now, Harry claims, as you can see, that it’s “full of stuff,” but he only tells me about a receipt and a key. I’m assuming that the other items include a fat wad of bills that Harry is going to be “protecting” until he bumps into Dr. Dickhead, MD again.

  If we examine it in the menu, the receipt is revealed to be from a general store called “The Indian Runner” which I would call out for appropriation if I knew what the hell an “Indian Runner” is supposed to be in the first place. A casual search of Google reveals that it’s both the name of a movie and a kind of duck so… um… sure, whatever. The ducks are native to Indonesia, so that clearly isn’t what this place is in reference to. Even then, it doesn’t explain why the symbol is a buffalo skull when Silent Hill is in Maine and I’m pretty sure buffalo never quite got that far.

To be fair, it is just kind of a misshapen lump.

  But I’ve covered that once before, so now it just seems redundant.

  The receipt has a code written on it—0473—so I guess breaking into the Indian Runner is our next stop on what I’m sure won’t be a massive waste of time! But that is not for today to reveal, as we are out of our allotted time, friends and foes. I invite you to join me next time for the glorious episode known only as Well, This is Turning Out to be a Massive Waste of Time.

BONUS: Anyone remember Andy’s Books? Well…

Behold, the power of REFERENCE!

Also, if anyone wanted to see Dr. Kaufmann and Harry get ready for their inevitable dance off, here’s some behind-the-scenes footage.

FEEL THE BURN

Also, this intensely disjointed conversation for your viewing pleasure (it would help if I actually posted it, which I didn't do until Thursday... oopsie doodle):

Action!

     

  

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